Loss and Healing
by Michelle Richard
Summary: John Cena has lost his title and the girl that he loved. Kacey’s heart has been torn to pieces with the death of her husband. Will the two of them be able to find healing together or just more pain? John Cena X OC
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing

**A/N:** _As I was looking over the stories on my profile I realized that the writing in this story wasn't very good. Since I have a special connection with the characters, I decided to re-write it and hopefully bring new life to it. So whether you are a long time reader or a newbie, I hope that you enjoy reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please remember to review once you are done as they are my sunshine and I know that you don't want me to live in darkness._

--

John could feel the fatigue from his flight starting to catch up with him as he waited impatiently for the elevator in another nameless hotel to appear and take him to his room. As the numbers slowly counted down to the lobby, John's mind wandered back to earlier that day and the confrontation that he had with his girlfriend, Addison.

_"Addie!" John shouted up the stairs of his house. "Are you almost ready? We're going to miss the plane if we don't get going."_

_Addison appeared at the top of the stairs looking coldly beautiful. "I'm not going."_

_"What do you mean you're not going?" John could feel his temper beginning to rise._

_"Exactly that. I'm not going."_

_"And why not?"_

_"Because I don't want to." Addison lifted her shoulders delicately. "There's a party being thrown by Lorraine this weekend and anyone who is anybody is going to be there."_

_"You're not going to come with me because of a party?" John couldn't believe what he was hearing._

_"You know you should really blow off this trip and come with me to the party." Addison assessed her boyfriend coolly. "It would really help your career if you could just be seen in the right place with the right people."_

_"If I blow off this 'trip' it could ruin my career." John ground out. "Being at the house shows is part of being one of the top superstars."_

_Addison just arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow as if to question John's statement, letting the silence stretch between them. Finally, just as John was almost ready to yell from frustration, Addison spun on her heel, heading towards the room that they shared._

_John stood at the bottom of the stairs, fists clenched at his sides. A quick glance at his watch showed that he didn't have time to try and take some sense into Addison. Grabbing his luggage from beside the door, John headed out the door letting it slam behind him. _

The soft dinging of the elevator doors brought John back to the present. Wearily making his way into the car, he punched the number for his floor and waited anxiously for the doors to close behind him with a silent whoosh. Slowly the elevator climbed steadily upwards, stopping smoothly at the eighth floor. Gathering up his gym bag and suitcase, John let out a groan as he heard the faint strains of his single _Right Now_ emanating from his pocket.

"Just my fucking luck." John muttered darkly, knowing that there was no way he was going to be able to reach his phone before it went to voicemail. "I swear that the damn thing only rings when my hands are full."

"You do know that they say the first sign of insanity is when you start talking to yourself, right?" A cheerful female voice said from behind John.

John turned his head to glare at Samantha Young, better known as Sammie. "You, my dear, are way to chipper for having just endured a hellishly long plane ride."

"Watch you you're calling 'my dear'." Randy Orton appeared next to the couple, slinging his arm over his fiancée's shoulder. "I just might think you're trying to steal my woman away from me."

John rolled his eyes at his friend. "Like I could even if I wanted to, for some reason that women truly seems to love you."

"I know." Randy couldn't stop the large grin that crossed his face. "I'll never know how I got so lucky to find her."

"Well I'm pretty sure it isn't your good looks, since you don't have any. I'm still leaning towards the fact that you have somehow brainwashed her." John could feel his bad mood start to lift as he bantered with his friends.

"No way!" Randy shook his head. "She loves me because of my prowess in bed."

John raised his eyebrows. "You know, that could possibly be construed as a form of brainwash."

Sammie was beginning to get frustrated by the fact that they guys were talking over her head as if she wasn't even there. "Being short really sucks. All the tall people talk over you like you aren't even here." She muttered under her breath.

"You do realize that talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity, right?" John threw Sammie's words back at her, a smile on his lips.

Wrinkling her nose in a mock glare at John, Sammie reached out and snatched the little envelope that housed his key card out of his hand.

"Hey!" John tried to grab it back but Sammie darted behind Randy.

"Randy!" John whined. "Make your woman give me my key back."

Randy just shook his head at his best friend and fiancée's antics. "I swear, you two are worse that a couple of kids. Sammie…" Randy's voice took on a patient tone as if he was talking to a little child as he turned around to look at her. "…why did you take John's room key?"

"I wanted to see what room he was in." Sammie smiled innocently up at Randy.

"Well you could have just asked." John reached around and yanked the envelope out of Sammie's hand.

"Fine." Sammie crossed her arms, a pout forming on her lips. "What room are you in?"

"I'm not telling you know."

At John's words, Sammie's face took on a shocked expression and she attempted to grab the key card back. John anticipated her move and dropped his bag off his shoulder so that he could hold her back while raising the card above his head with the other hand.

"This is so not fair!" Sammie turned to look at Randy. "Help me!"

"Uh uh." Randy crossed his arms and shook his head, a smile playing across his lips. "You started this, you need to finish it."

"Mean." Sammie glared momentarily at Randy before turning her attention back to John.

"Please tell me what room you are in." She asked sweetly, giving him a wide eyed innocent smile.

"All you had to do was ask nicely." John handed Sammie his room key before gathering up the luggage that he had dropped in his tussle with her.

"Yippy!" Sammie's squeal caused John and Randy to turn and look at her curiously.

"We're right next to each other." Sammie held up the card to prove her point. When the guys continued to star at her, she shrugged her shoulders. "I'm just excited that we're close."

John looked over at Randy. "Your woman is weird."

"That may be true but at least she's my weird woman."

"There they go again, talking over me." Sammie mumbled as she handed John's key back to him.

"You guys headed back to your room?" John motioned with his hand in the general direction of their rooms.

"Actually we were just headed to get something to eat. You wanna join us?" Randy asked.

"Hell yeah. Just let me drop off my bags."

Randy and Sammie nodded their hands, agreeing to wait for John while he ran down to his room.

John quickly let himself into his room, dropping his bags on to the bed haphazardly. Taking a quick assessment to make sure that he had everything he needed, John began to head out of his room before remembering that he had a voicemail waiting for him. Quickly pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he hit the voicemail button and waited patiently for the electronic voice to tell him that he had one new message.

Addison's calm even voice flowed out of the phone. "John, I really hope that you are reconsidering the party. I went ahead and booked you a return flight for tomorrow afternoon which would get you here just in time for the party. Please don't be late."

Once the message was done playing, John could only stare at his phone in amazement. _Did that really just happen?_ He wondered to himself. He couldn't believe that Addison would actually go as far as to schedule him a flight home as if he would drop everything for a party at some person's house that he didn't even know.

Deciding to nip this in the bud before it became something more; John quickly dialed his girlfriend's cell phone.

"John." Addison's voice was all business. "Did you get my message?" Without waiting for his confirmation, she barreled ahead. "I'm glad you're calling. We really need to discuss your attire for the party along with the people that you need to make sure that you are introduced to. Also…"

"I'm not coming home." John effectively cut off Addison's words.

For several seconds there was silence on the line. "What do you mean, you aren't coming home?"

John almost rolled his eyes at the similarity between this conversation and the one that had taken place earlier that day. "Exactly that. I told you before I left; I need to be at the house shows. The Royal Rumble is next weekend and if I'm going to convince the higher ups to give me another shot at the title, I have to prove myself. And the best way to prove myself to them is to prove myself to the fans. The best place to reach the fans is at the house shows."

"I thought we had discussed this." Addison's voice was cold with anger.

"Discussed what?" As was the norm when he talked to Addison, John felt confused as to what they were talking about.

"Your career, John. You can't be a wrestler forever. You need to be looking towards the future."

"And why can't I be a wrestler forever? There are a lot of older people still wrestling."

"Because I'm not willing to let you throw away the best years of your life on some damn job that gets you nowhere."

"What are you talking about?" John could feel a headache beginning to form.

Addison continued as if she hadn't even heard John's question. "You need to be getting out there and introducing yourself to the Hollywood producers. How else are you ever going to get a movie contract if you don't?"

"I don't want to make movies! I've told you that over and over. I love wrestling and I love the fans. Even though I had fun making The Marine, I really have no desire to do that for the rest of my life."

Addison sighed loudly. "I'm beginning to wonder why I'm even still bothering with you. It's obvious that you have no goals in life and are unwilling to look to the future."

"I do have goals in life." John's voice was tight with anger. "They just don't happen to be the same as yours."

Before Addison was able to say anything, John raised his voice. "And they aren't going to change. I'm not going to give up everything that I've worked my whole life for just because you don't like it."

"Then I guess there isn't any reason for me to continue with this relationship. I'll be out of your place before you get home." Without saying goodbye, Addison hung up leaving a stunned John to stare at the dead phone in his hand.

A myriad of emotions rushed through John as he slowly sat down on the edge of the bed to process what had just happened. He remained this way until a loud banging on his door brought him out of his silent reverie. Slowly, as if in a deep trance, John made his way to the door to reveal an impatient couple.

Catching sight of John stricken face, Randy and Sammie's impatience immediately turned to one of concern

"Hey." Sammie's voice was soft. "You okay?"

John blinked his eyes several times as if trying to compute what she was saying. Then with a slight shake of his head, he seemed to wake from his daze. "Addison just broke up with me." His voice had a hint bewilderment to it.

At first, neither Randy nor Sammie knew what to say. Even though they both felt that John was too good for Addison, he had loved her unconditionally and they had respected that.

"You okay, man?" Randy echoed Sammie's earlier words.

John was silent for a moment as he pondered Randy's words. "Yeah, I think I am." He said with a firm nod. "Now, how about we go get something to eat?"

Sammie studied John's face for a second before letting a grin split her face. Reaching out she linked one arm with John and the other with Randy.

"So what are we doing tonight after the show?" Sammie asked as the three friends made their way down the hallway.

John and Randy let out a loud groan at her question, knowing that they were going to end up going with her to whatever hot club she was able to find.

"What?" Sammie exclaimed just as the elevator arrived to take them down to the lobby.

John just shook his head at the grinning blonde next to him. With a smile he decided that maybe splitting up with Addison wasn't such a bad thing after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

--

Three months later John found himself sitting, once again, in another nameless hotel, this time located in Kansas City. With a heavy heart he recalled the conversation that he had about a month ago with the head writer regarding his match at WrestleMania which would be taking place this weekend.

_"I don't know what to tell you, John." Joe looked helplessly at him. "My hands are tied on this issue."_

_"But it was at my request that I dropped the title. I'm letting you know now that I'm ready for another title run." John felt dread beginning to creep through him._

_"I understand that but as of right now, everyone is happy with the job that Adam is doing as the champion. Now that I know you are willing to hold the again, I will do what I can to get you another title run." Joe offered John a sympathetic smile._

_"I understand where you are coming from." John stood up and reached over to shake Joe's hand. "Thanks for at least taking the time to meet with me."_

_A feeling of disappointment and anger overcame John as he left Joe's office. All though he had known it would be a long shot, he had hoped that his dedication and performance the last couple of months would prove to the higher ups that he was indeed ready for another title run. The fact that he had won the Royal Rumble had seemed like a good sign but unfortunately it looked like he had waited too long to make it known that he wanted the title back and now he didn't know when he was going to get another shot at the title._

Hearing a knock on his door, John was brought back to the present. Hurrying over to the door, he found a messenger with the script for WrestleMania waiting for his signature. After quickly scrawling his name on the line that the messenger indicated, John offered him a brief smile before taking the script from him.

Even though John knew he was in the main event, he didn't immediately flip to that section because he had no real desire to see his lose to Adam spelled out in writing. Slowly he read through the other matches, excitement growing as he recognized the possibility for this to be one of the greatest WrestleManias in history.

Once he had read through about half of the matches, he decided to go find Randy and Sammie to see what they were doing for supper. After gathering up his wallet, cell phone, and room key, he headed towards their room.

Once he arrived at their door, he gave a short, loud rap on their door. When they didn't answer right away, he let his head fall to the door as he continued to knock.

"What the hell do you want?" An irate Randy yanked the door open, causing John to stumble and nearly fall on his face. Randy's irritation gave way to laughter once he realized who was at the door.

"John!" Sammie cried out from her place on the bed, throwing her hands in the air in greeting. "I haven't seen you in forever!"

"Or since Monday." John grinned at her as he threw himself onto the bed next to her.

"Like I said, forever." Sammie patted John's shoulder. "What brings you all the way down here?"

Randy shot his fiancée a strange look. "You make it sound like our rooms are in different states as opposed to just down the hall."

Sammie sighed dramatically. "Well with the little amount of time that we see him, we might as well be in different states."

"Didn't you guys just get to the hotel like thirty minutes ago?" John asked.

"Yeah." Sammie shrugged. "What's your point?"

"Just wondering how you can justify your previous statement if you haven't even been in the building all that long."

"So, what brings the main eventer all the way down to lowly room of just a WrestleMania participant?" Sammie ignored John's statement.

"I was bored." John sighed. "And I must say that you guys aren't doing much to help entertain me."

"You are such a Miva!" Sammie smacked John's chest causing him to laugh and roll away from her.

"So are you going to entertain me or not?" John jumped off the bed as Sammie tried to slap him again.

"Randy! Keep your woman in line!"

Randy just shook his head at the two of them, watching in amusement as Sammie climbed off the bed causing John to watch her warily. With one eye trained on Sammie, John backed slowly towards the door. When he finally reached it, he fumbled with the handle briefly, throwing the door open just as Sammie leapt forward. John, followed closely by Sammie, barreled into the hallway, nearly knocking down Dave Batista who jumped out of the way just in time.

"Piss off Sammie again?" Dave asked an amused Randy who emerged from his room a bit slower.

"He was demanding to be entertained." Randy grinned.

"You'd think he would learn." Dave shook his head. "Well good luck with that."

"Thanks." Randy moved off down the hall to see if he could find his friend and fiancée before that destroyed something.

--

An irritating buzz pulled Kacey out of the work induced trance she was in. Reaching over, she quickly hit the intercom button allowing her to talk to Haley, her assistant.

"You have a call on line one." Haley spoke briskly. "It's your sisters."

"Is it that time already?" Kacey finally looked up from her computer in surprise as she checked the clock on the wall of her office. "Guess it is. Thanks Hales." Kacey, fully intending to shut her computer screen off, turned back to the spreadsheet she had been working on as she hit the line one button, allowing the call to come through on the speaker phone.

"Hey guys. How are things going with you?" Kacey's attention was suddenly drawn to a potentially huge mistake on the spreadsheet.

"Life is life." Jacey, the middle of the three sisters, said.

"Uh huh." Kacey replied, not really listening to what was being said.

Jacey immediately zoned in on the distracted tone in Kacey's voice. "Are you working?"

"No." Kacey answered, her attention still riveted to her computer screen.

"Good, then you'll agree to come to Static with us tonight." A smile could be heard in the youngest sister's voice.

"Sure, Lace, whatever you say." Kacey agreed without really hearing her sister.

"Promise?" Lacey persisted.

"Uh huh." Kacey said again, nodding her head even though her sister's couldn't see her. Hearing her youngest sister's squeal of triumph, Kacey looked at her phone, confusion crossing her face.

Before she had a chance to question Lacey about it, Jacey burst out. "You are too working! Turn off the computer screen right now!"

"Yeah Kace, you promised that you wouldn't work during our phone calls." Lacey's soft voice floated into the room, making Kacey feel guilty.

Sighing, Kacey reached up and punched the button that caused her screen to go black. Picking up the handset, she balanced it between her ear and shoulder. "I'm sorry guys. The computer is off now. So, what's up? "

With those words the three sisters began their weekly three way phone call. Even though the girls all lived in Kansas City, their lives were so varied that they hardly ever had the chance to actually get together, thus the Friday afternoon phone calls were born.

Time slipped away from Kacey as she let the love and friendship of her sisters wrap around her like a comforting blanket. Only when Haley knocked on her office door to let her know that she was leaving did Kacey realize how late it truly ways.

"Listen guys, I hate to be the one to end this party but I really need to finish up here at the office so that I can get home." Kacey said, regret tingeing her words.

"Okay." Jacey chirped. "We'll just see you tonight."

Kacey stared at her phone in confusion even though she knew that her sisters couldn't see her. "Wait, what?" She shook her head trying to figure out what Jacey was talking about.

"You said that you would go to Static with us tonight." Lacey reminded Kacey.

"When?" Kacey demanded.

"While you were still working." Kacey could just imagine the smug look on Jacey's face.

"That isn't fair!" Kacey whined. "You took advantage of me."

"That's what you get for working when you were supposed to be talking to us." Lacey piped up. "You promised and I know that you'd never break a promise."

"You guys aren't going to let me out of this are you?" Kacey sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as she felt the beginnings of a headache.

"No way." Jacey said emphatically. "We never get you to agree to go out with us, so now that we have, even if it was through trickery, we're so going to make you follow through with it."

"Besides," Lacey joined in. "You need to get out more. It's been almost two years and you know that Tristan would hate for you to still be moping around. When was the last time that you even bothered to check in on Static and Tucker?"

Sorrow and guilt warred within Kacey as she thought of Tristan, Tucker, and the club that she was supposed to be part owner of. "I guess I have been a little negligent on my duties." She reluctantly agreed.

"So then it's settled. You can kill two birds with one stone." Lacey's voice was overly cheerful. "You can check up on the club and have fun with us."

"Yeah, alright." Kacey sighed again. "I'll meet you guys at the club around nineish?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Jacey quickly said goodbye, with Lacey right behind her. Both sisters wanted to get off the phone as soon as possible so that Kacey didn't have time to change her mind and talk them into letting her out of going out with them.

Kacey slowly hung up the phone, staring at it as if she expected it to come alive and bite her. A part of her couldn't believe that her sisters had stooped so low as to trick her into going out with them. The other part knew that they just wanted what was best of her and they both felt that it was time for Kacey to come out of mourning and move on with her life.

Resisting the urge to pick up the phone to call her sisters back and plead for mercy, Kacey decided to focus her attention on the work that she still needed to complete so that she wasn't stuck at the office the entire night. Being the sole owner of Morgan's Properties, a real estate company that specialized in buying commercial properties to fix up and then sell at a hefty profit, Kacey was used to the long hours that were demanded of her.

Kacey had started Morgan's Properties at the tender age of twenty with a prayer and barely enough money to meet her monthly overhead. During the first couple of years, Kacey had been responsible for everything that came with making the company a success. She had been the one to find the properties, purchase them, fix them up and then market and sell them. With the help of her husband and best friend, Kacey had been able to grown her company into a nationwide enterprise in a little over five years.

Now that she had satellite offices in nearly every major city throughout the United States, most of Kacey's time was taken up in meetings and important phone calls. She still liked to keep abreast of the different projects that each of her offices was working on so that if needed, she was able to help out in a pinch.

Jacey and Lacey were constantly telling her that she was doing too much and if she wasn't careful, she was going to work herself into an early grave. Kacey knew that her health was suffering from the hours that she put into her work but she needed an escape from the pain that still hadn't begun to fade and for the few hours that she focused solely on work, she was almost able to forget that Tristan was truly gone.

Once Kacey had finished going over the spreadsheet for the New York office, she shut down her computer. Standing, she stretched, attempting to work out the kinks that seemed to be permanently lodged in her back. Vowing to call her massage therapist the next morning, Kacey gathered up her briefcase and cell phone, glancing at it to make sure that she didn't have any new messages.

Hurrying out of the office building, Kacey was surprised to see several large trucks parked outside the arena that shared a parking lot with them. Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall if she had any knowledge of an event taking place that weekend but came up blank. Though they didn't have any formal agreement, the arena was usually pretty good about letting her know if they would be having a large event so she could let the rest of the building know that parking could be tricky during that time.

A quick glance at her watch confirmed that she barely had time to pick something up to eat, much less actually investigate what was going on at the arena if she wanted to make it to the club on time. With a sigh, Kacey climbed into her silver Mustang and fired up the engine, letting it idle silently while she pulled out her cell phone to call her favorite Chinese place.

After her order had been placed, Kacey carefully began to pull out of the parking lot. As she reached the street that ran in front of the office building and arena, a petite blonde walking amongst the cars talking on a cell phone caught her eye. At that exact moment the blonde raised her head and for a brief second brown clashed with blue. Puzzlement clouded Kacey's eyes as she thought she recognized the blonde but before she had time to consider it there was a break in traffic and she nosed her Mustang into the steady stream of cars.

With the smell of chicken fried rice filling the car, Kacey pulled into her driveway, taking a moment to study her house. While it wasn't overly large, the architecture was stunning. The house had been built by a wealthy entrepreneur who had a love for the architect of the southern plantations. When he had passed away, his heirs had let the place fall into disrepair before putting it on the market. Kacey had fallen in love with it the moment that she had seen it and Tristan, wanting to do whatever he could to make sure that Kacey was happy, had bought the house as a surprise for their five year wedding anniversary. They had spent many happy hours returning the house

After parking her car in the garage, Kacey made her way into the large kitchen, throwing her purse, phone, and keys on the counter and kicking her shoes off. Grabbing a fork out of one of the drawers and a bottle of water, Kacey made her way into the living room where she curled up on the couch, flipping the TV on. Finding an X-File marathon in progress, Kacey half watched the show as she consumed her dinner.

Once she was done eating, Kacey threw away the container the rice had come in and placed the fork in the dishwasher. Gathering up her purse and keys, Kacey shut out the lights and slowly made her way up the stairs to the master bedroom suite. Quickly stripping off the clothes that she had worn to the office, Kacey stepped under the hot spray of the shower, letting the water flow over her.

**A/N:** _Please review and let me know what you think of the story._


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